Vegetarian Guthuk Recipe

We’re continuing our series of posts on traditions relating to the Tibetan New Year – Losar – with a vegetarian recipe for the very popular guthuk soup eaten on the night before Losar’s Eve. Guthuk is the only Tibetan food that is eaten only once a year, on the day before the last day of the year, as part of a ritual of dispelling any negativities of the old year, to make way for an auspicious new one. The base of the soup is actually a common noodle soup called thukpa bhathuk, but at the end of the year, this daily favorite is transformed to a special dish. (There is some discussion among Tibetans about whether the noodle shape we use here is called gutsi rithuk or bhathuk, but for my family, bhathuk is a generic terms for a type of noodle that includes gutsi rithuk :-) So for my family, these little curved shells are both bhathuk, and more specifically, gutsi rithuk. If you want more of discussion of that, see my thukpa bhathukrecipe.)

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What turns a thukpa bhatuk into a guthuk is a combination of things.

One is the fact that it is eaten on the 29th day of the last month of the year on the Tibetan calendar. “Gu” in Tibetan means nine, and “thuk” refers generally to noodle soups, so we can say that guthuk is the soup eaten on the twenty-ninth day.

A further significance of the “gu” is that the soup traditionally has at least nine ingredients. In this vegetarian version of guthuk, the nine main ingredients are: mushrooms, celery, labu (radish), peas, tomato, onion, ginger, garlic, and spinach. A traditional guthuk would include meat (yak or beef) and dried cheese.

The last necessary element of a guthuk is the large dough ball which each person eating the soup receives. Tucked inside the dough ball is a item or symbol of that item which is meant to be a playful commentary on the one who gets it. In the dough ball below, for example, the message was “tsal,” which means salt in Tibetan, and refers to a lazy person. Traditionally, there would be an actual piece of rock salt inside the dough ball. In any case you don’t want to draw the dough ball with salt! :-)

This guthuk recipe is a fusion of traditional and contemporary Tibetan cooking. Lobsang uses his traditional thukpa bhatuk recipe as a base, but chose to go vegetarian instead of the traditional meat style, and added celery and mushrooms for a flavorful veg broth.

Mix to form a ball and then knead a couple of minutes. The dough will be a bit dryish and stiff. If you can’t form a ball, you can a little more water. If dough is sticky, add a tiny bit more flour.

This dough does not have to rest after kneading so you can prepare it any time during the cooking process.

Shape the Dough

From this dough, you will make two different types of things. One is called bhatsa, and these are the normal little gnocchi-like scoops of noodle in an everyday thukpa bhathuk. The other thing we make, though, is what really makes this soup a guthuk instead of just a thukpa bhathuk, and that is the large round dough balls that contain hidden items or messages for each person eating the soup.

For the Normal Bhatsa

First, rub the ball of dough between your hands to make it into a thick tube of dough, and then pinch off pieces of that tube to make 4-5 chunks of dough.

Then rub each piece of dough between your hands to form long, thin ropes of dough.

Pinch off a piece as big as the end of your fingernail, or smaller.

Rub the dough with one finger in the palm of your hand to cause the little piece of dough to curl up (the better to scoop up the juices in the soup). These little scooped pieces of dough are your bhatsa.

Repeat until you’ve used up all but 1 of your ropes of dough.

You can sprinkle a little flour around the pile of bhatsa, to keep them from sticking together.

For the Special Dough Balls with the Hidden Items or Messages

Pinch off a piece of dough 4-5 times as big as one of the normal bhatsa. Basically, the dough balls need to be easily distinguishable in the soup, so that we can pick out our dough ball from among the bhatsa.

Roll it roughly into a circle between your hands, but before you finish rolling it, fold one of the pieces of papers with the special messages, and stuff it into the center of the dough ball, then re-roll it to make the ball as smooth as you can. It’s best if there are no cracks so that paper stays dry inside the dough ball when we cook it. Of course if you wish, you can add the actual items, like some salt, or coal, inside the dough ball. But these days most people outside Tibet just put a paper with a word or symbol written on it to signify the item.

Make one dough ball for each person eating your guthuk.

See the images in this post for the size and shape of the dough balls.

Lightly brown the ginger, garlic and onion on medium high, about 3 minutes.

Add celery, mushrooms, tomato, soy sauce and salt and cook on high for about 7 minutes.

Add 3 cups of water, keeping heat on high, and bring to a boil.

When the broth starts to boil, turn down to low and simmer for 10 minutes

After the broth has simmered for 10 minutes, add 3 more cups of water, turn heat on high and bring broth to a boil.

After the broth begins to boil, add the labu and green peas. Heat remains on high.

After 5 minutes, add the bhatsa and the large Guthuk dough balls with the special messages inside them. Heat remains on high.

When cooked the bhatsa and the large dough balls will pop up to the surface of the soup. This will take about 5 minutes. When most of them are popped up to the surface, turn off the heat but leave on the burner.

Stir in spinach, cilantro, and green onion and serve right away. (These final ingredients do not really need to cook, and look nicer if they are fresh looking.)

Put one big dough ball in each bowl of soup.

Serve right away – it is best to eat hot!

After you have enjoyed the soup for a while, each person can fish out his or her dough ball and dig out the message inside for some fun :-)

Reader Interactions

Comments

I am looking forward to making this for the first time this year. I am in the UK and have looked all over for daikon/mooli and it is nowhere to be found. Is there an alternative I can use? Should I just leave it out?

Thank you very much for sharing this, I am going to make it.
But just a question, would it be possible to create a print option that would produce a printer friendly version? I wanted to print it and found that you have none.
If not, please remove the annoying anti-copy scripts, as they made it a tad bit harder for me to remove unwanted parts by hand (disabling these scripts takes about 4 minutes, so they really don’t provide any protection anyway).
Other than that, great site and great recipe! I’ll let you know how we liked it!

Hi Michael. Sorry for the hassle of not being able to print. Although the anti-copy scripts can be got around, before we had the anti-copy our content frequently was getting stolen wholesale and now it hardly happens. We know this is a problem for our Viewers and regret that, but have not found a good solution yet – something that allows folks to print, but not to cut and paste the whole page. If you know of anything, please let us know. And thanks for the encouragement on the site :-) Let us know how you liked the recipe!

If I plan to make this recipe the day before Losar, should I wait to put the bhatsa and guthuk into the otherwise prepared soup until closer to when we will feast? If I have tsampa, ,can you substitute it for the flour that will make the bhatsa?

Yes, wait until near the end to put the bhatsa and the large dough balls, as they just need a few minutes — maybe 5 minutes to cook. Tsampa is not generally a good substitute for flour. If you use tsampa, it would probably dissolve in the soup. Best to you and let us know how it goes!

This thukpa recipe really turned into a fantastic hit at our Shambhala Day celebration! Everyone loved it and wanted the recipe! I did not end up putting the bhatsa in only because i had a crock pot at that point and did not think I could get the temperature up high enough to cook them fully. But thankfully there were left overs so when i got home I added bhatsa. That made the thukpa even better. Next time I will add the bhatsa in advance — having not made it before, I was worried they would break down if they were in the liquid too long — but that worry never came to pass! Thank you!

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